Police manipulation of crime data - Police manipulation of...

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Unformatted text preview: Police manipulation of crime data Senior police officials around the nation voiced concern in 1998 that the sharp drop in crime in the 1990s had produced pressure on police departments to show ever-decreasing crime statistics. In 1998, charges were leveled against police officials in New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Boca Raton for falsely reporting crime statistics. A common thread running through many of the incidents of police officials' alteration of crime statistics is that police commanders responded to pressure from politicians, the media, and the public to lower crime rates by downgrading felonies by intentionally mislabeling felonies, such as aggravated assault and burglary, as misdemeanors. Such a practice deflates rates of serious crimes and inflates rates of nonserious crimes. Experts say they believe these incidents do not mean that the nationwide drop in crime is illusory. They point to the fact that victimization data, which are not the nationwide drop in crime is illusory....
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